1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for reproducing a stereoscopic image and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method for processing a stereoscopic image in a pause mode.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as the interest in a stereoscopic image service is increasing, devices for providing a stereoscopic image have been continued to be developed. One of the schemes of implementing a stereoscopic image is a stereoscopic scheme.
A basic principle of the stereoscopic scheme is that images arranged to be perpendicular to a person's left and right eyes are separately inputted, and the images respectively inputted to the left and right eyes are coupled to generate a stereoscopic image in the person's brain. In this case, the arrangement of the images to be perpendicular to each other refers to a state in which the respective images do not interfere with each other.
Detailed methods for excluding interference include a polarization scheme, a time-sequential scheme, and a spectral scheme.
First, the polarization scheme is separating the respective images by using the polarization filter. Namely, the polarization filters perpendicular to the image for the left eye and the image for the right eye are applied, different images filtered by the polarization filters are inputted to the left and right visual fields. The time-sequential scheme is a method in which left and right images are alternately displayed and active glasses worn by the user are synchronized with the alternately displayed images to thus separate the respective images. Namely, when the images are alternately displayed, the shutter of the active glasses synchronized with the alternately displayed image opens only the visual field to which the corresponding image needs to be inputted and shuts the other visual field, thus separately inputting the left and right images.
Meanwhile, the spectral scheme is a method of projecting left and right images through a spectrum filter having a spectrum band in which RGB spectrums do not overlap. With respect to the thusly projected left and right images, the user wears passive glasses having the spectrum filter allowing only a spectrum area set for the left and right images, thus separately receiving left and right images.
However, as described above, the stereoscopic image is implemented by using two two-dimensional images, a phenomenon in which an image is unnatural or distorted may occur. In particular, if the stereoscopic image is paused while being reproduced, the related art stereoscopic image reproducing apparatus stops transmission of the left and right images, and only one of the left and right images currently being produced. Thus, when the 3D stereoscopic image being reproduced is changed to the 2D image, the original image slides to the left or right on the screen.